I absolutely need everyone to reblog this right now. This is an offline browser meant to read Homestuck as it was intended, with Flash.
This project is absolutely BIG and the person behind it BIGGER, and you guys have no idea how glad I am to have a complete Homestuck archive right at hand that also has stuff like The Baby Is You and Humanimals among so much more. Like what?? It’s the real MSPA.
Please share this. Go to the creator’s Twitter (Bamboshu) and retweet too! Donate.
Also, all the content is less than 4GB? I’d think it’d be way more heavy. You can even save it on a USB and you’ve got the entirety of Homestuck and MSPA in your hands…
When designing and development the Classpect system, what is your teams’ opinion and belief in the system. I’m really referring to the Knight is passive Page is active, Active is more about selfishness and Passive is of Selflessness, and Knights and Pages Serve not exploit their aspect.
Oh boy. The thing about classpects, and Homestuck in general, is that what works in the context of a linear comic may not work as a game. For example, things like time-travel and retcons that are central to the plot of Homestuck are simply impossible in a game, as we are constrained by the laws of physics. This also means that we cannot really do much with “subjective” class or aspect meanings. While we can incorporate being “selfish” as a game mechanic, there’s no way for us to enforce that characteristic unto the player without also removing their liberty to play their character how they see fit. So in general, we go with a classpect system that makes the most sense in terms of game mechanics, not in terms of plot or character.TL;DR : We interpret classpects in a way that allows us to add in cool abilities or quests, not in a way that might make the most sense when discussing the plot of Homestuck.Also, according to our interpretation, the Knight is active while the Page is passive.
Like a particularly poorly-made Frankenstein*, I rise from my grave to twitch once or twice and probably fall back over again but maybe stay alive!
Activity and passivity were never about relationship to the world, it’s purely about relationship to your Aspect. Let’s take Maids and Sylphs as an example; Maids (passive) subsume their own desires in favor of (passive) servitude to their Aspect; Sylphs (Active) will actively try to seek out and solve some aspect-related problem. In both cases the solution is moderation; Sylphs need to be more passive and allow problems to solve themselves, and Maids need to be more active and more proactive rather than just chaining themself to catchup duty. The solution for all classes also involves the fundamental realization, “I am a god, and as such I need not obey my Aspect, for it obeys me”. For Knights, this means recognizing that you don’t need to have an (active) façade of what they perceive their role to be, and for Pages it means recognizing the goal they’re working towards and (passively) trying to shape themself into is unnecessary and probably toxic. That’s the problem with assigning Mythological Roles to people and asking them to act them out for mechanical power; they’re less about what you should be doing, and more about what you default to doing, but really shouldn’t.
*an appropriate appellation for a shambling monster, since one Frankenstein was a strange unhuman creature which took his name from his father, and the other was a) someone who attempted to breach the boundary between life and death for no particular reason other than curiosity and b) a college student.
To everyone who has been waiting for me to revive this blog, and received a notification that I posted, only to discover it was a shitpost about Magic: the Gathering and Pigs
I am deeply sorry and did not intend to post that to this blog. I assure you, this blog will not turn to excessive analysis of pig shitposts anytime soon.
This seems as good a way as any as confirming I’m not dead (although this blog kinda is, but I should have more content SoonTM, ideally after the end of the semester)
I AM ON A MISSION. I AM GOING TO FOLLOW EVERY BLOG ON THIS SITE. ALL OF THEM. HELP ME ACHIEVE THIS GOAL, INTERNET STRANGERS, BY REBLOGGING THIS POST AND I WILL FOLLOW ALL WHO REBLOG IT. E V E R Y O N E.
bards seem like pretty surface level people. you can p much tell what they’re about, they don’t seem like the type of lie a lot or to be good at lying and they’re usually not that hard to see the motivation of. they’re not the type to be sarcastic or passive aggressive. If they’re thinking something they’re probably straight up just gonna say it most of the time. a bard might be a monologuing super villain who lays out his plans to the hero before he kills them or that one friend who you can never trust with a secret.
on the contrast, princes are huge fucking enigmas. hard to tell what the fuck they’re thinking or what their true intentions are at any given time. they’re good at lying and putting on facades. they’re far more likely to be passive aggressive or sarcastic and usually dance around what they’re thinking, sometimes not even admitting it to themselves. a prince might be the party member on a quest no one expected was going to double cross the hero or that one friend who seems fine but has a breakdown at 4 am on tumblr instead of asking for help.
this dichotomy is easiest to see between gamzee vs kurloz.
gamzee’s can be read like a fucking book. when he’s up to something you KNOW he’s up to something. if he doesn’t tell you what he’s up to out right its still painfully obvious when he’s hiding SOMETHING.
kurloz on the other hand is extremely insincere. he’s fantastic at hiding things and people around him are none the wiser to his shenanigans. when he’s up to something you’ll never know it unless he wants you to know it.
i’ve been thinkin about this over the past couple of days and thought i should post it. feel free 2 add on or rip this post to shreds.
My personal take on it is that both Bards and Princes are repulsed by their aspect and need to accept it, but Bards fear their aspect whereas Princes hate it.
This might seem like a meaningless dichotomy, but it drives character to react differently. Bards end up behaving erratically, trying to run from reality because it contains their aspect. Princes, meanwhile, act like they have total control, and in fact try to have total control over some section of reality in order to drive their aspect out.
For an example, let’s look at Gamzee vs. Kurloz. Both need to learn to accept Rage, which is dismal things, bitter truth, and realism verging on cynicism. Gamzee is afraid of this dark and dismal world and the truth it conceals, so he uses sopor slime to distance himself from it. Only when he runs out of slime is he forced to confront reality (and truths such as the ICP not really being gods), and even then one could suggest he’s inverted to a Sylph of Hope forcibly bringing a delusional and religious wonderland to people. Kurloz, on the other hand, always acts like he’s in control because he basically is. Any time some fact of Rage gets in his way, he blocks it off, even accidentally deafening his matesprit. In the end, though, he’s still trying to create a world without Rage by bringing back his Mirthful Messiahs.
(no, I’m not dead yet... expect to see a few more “mini-analyses” coming out soon, and hopefully I’ll hit my ask backlog in a bit)
My Thoughts on the New “Canon” Aspect Quiz (+ moons!)
Well, this can’t wait.
I've taken the quiz, read the canon aspect descriptions and the descriptions of what the aspects of the Hiveswap characters are, as well as the descriptions of the moons. Thoughts below the cut:
(TL;DR: Contains some useful tidbits, but excessively facile and generally underwhelming and inadequate--but also not canon, so we can just ignore it as suits our needs)
ON THE ASPECTS:
The biggest thing about the aspects is that most of them have approximately one line of any value, and the rest is zodiac-like in that it’s basically rainbow reading--that is to say, every single aspect has such a wide list of personalities and traits listed that they will apply to everyone. There is, however, usually a key description of the aspect in the middle--stuff like confirming Rage as a denier of lies and a bringer of harsh truths. It also confirms the concept of aspects as opposites matching the standard pattern, and I would like to take this opportunity to politely tell everyone against this theory to suck it.
In terms of the actual aspects, the one thing we got (and it’s a big thing!) is an actual reasonable description of what Doom means and how it forms a dichotomy with life. It’s all terribly vague and buried in wishy-washy nonsense, but the gist of it seems to be that Doom players suffer and need to learn to empathize, while Life players empathize and need to learn to suffer. I’m not sure this exactly fits Sollux’s arc, and less sure that it fits Mituna’s (although Heirs don’t start with their aspect so it kinda works), but it’s more than possible that I’m misreading this. My biggest takeaway from this is twofold:
Firstly, that most if not all Doom players are on the Wounded Angel arc in Chuubo’s.
Secondly, that the Buddha is the archetypal Life player.
I’m really not sure how to feel about those things.
Unfortunately, most of the other aspects are a wash. Describing Time as goal-oriented is fair, if not the first thing I would say, and the description of Hope vs. Rage seems a little over-simplified but good enough for people with no prior background, but then they go and describe Light as knowledge. While this may seem correct at first blush, I’ve previously ranted about how all evidence in the story points towards Light as meaning stories instead. I can accept that Hussie wanted Light to mean knowledge, but his own work contradicts him here. The fact that they posted this makes me doubt the value of the other posts.
ON THE MOONS:
The lunar aspects share a lot of traits with the aspects, in that the descriptions are so broadly applicable as to basically be meaningless. Once again, there is a single line of valuable information to be gleaned from this, and that is the perceived decider between Prospit and Derse dreamers--Prospit dreamers accept authority, while Derse dreamers rebel against it. Like the aspects, this makes sense on first blush. However, there are some issues. You could easily say that Vriska and Tavros both respect authority, but to say Equius rejects it (as he should, as a Derse dreamer) is patently absurd. That might not be the best example, as Void players are free from stories about them and can make their own path, so they might not be as affected by their lunar alignment--but what about the other Dersite trolls? Nepeta shows no signs of wanting to fight the establishment or rebel in any particular way, Eridan wants to strengthen the status quo, and Feferi’s arc is in many ways about her having to learn to rebel because following the status quo is her first instinct! In short, this theory’s falling apart in a number of ways, and the nail in the coffin is that any theory that fails to explain why Sollux and Mituna, and only Sollux and Mituna, are residents of both moons falls apart--and this one doesn’t even try.
ON XEFROS BEING A RAGE PLAYER:
According to the signs shown, Xefros is destined to be a Rage player. A lot of people seem to view this as unexpected, but in truth he could be viewed as a Page or Knight of Rage rather easily. He’s been led by Dammek to believe that Rage is constant anger against “the man”, when in reality it’s tearing about any lies, even comforting ones like the rebellious structure Dammek’s set up. I don’t really have much to say about this, given how little we really know about Xefros; a lot of his characterization really hinges on how plausible the revolution is.
ON THE QUIZ ITSELF:
It has 8 questions for the moons and 12 for the aspects. Each of the moon questions has 5 answers on a linear scale between the moons, and each of the aspect questions is a linear scale between the two extremes of two opposite aspects. If there are ties, it resolves them in a fixed way rather than considering influence of other questions. In addition, some of the questions are based solely on surface-level traits of an aspect instead of the actual personality traits (”would you rather travel through time or through space”--really? I expected this from an amateurish fan, not from you). It has set before itself a monstrous undertaking, and then proceeded by falling flat on its face. If you were to design a classpect quiz (for I firmly believe that different classes have such different relations to their aspect that it would be impossible to properly determine one without the other), it would need to start with wide-ranging questions, then narrow down between similar ties as you went; it should ideally adjust itself on the fly to tease out nuances; and it would need to perform meta-analysis of the answers to notice overall trends in behavior. Even then, it might not always be correct. I may have been somewhat considering making such a quiz for myself with all of those features, but I lack the background in psychology which would be necessary to properly write the questions. So, to see this quiz which barely even tries, from WhatPumpkin and Hussie himself, borders on insulting.
“BUT WAIT! SURELY IF THIS CONTRADICTS YOUR THEORIES, THAT MEANS YOUR THEORIES ARE WRONG?”
I’m glad you asked such a leading question, imaginary Karkat! As it turns out, the author does not have sole ownership of the work, and their interpretation is not inherently more correct than anyone else’s. This is a principle known as death of the author, and while it may be considered something of a stretch, I firmly believe such a principle applies here, as the quiz is non-canonical. This may seem absurd at first blush, but there is a clear reason why:
These two trolls are the canon fantrolls, Mierfa Durgas and Nektan Whelan. They are the results of a pair of $10,000 donations to Hussie’s Kickstarter, which offered to make a fantroll canon. As such, any excuses you might make--for instance, that Caliope was imagining the signs as hypotheticals--cannot be used; these two characters are definitionally canon. However, their signs are not included in the expanded zodiac; and as such, because it contradicts known canon information, it therefore is not canon and cannot be treated as such. It can tell us a lot about what Hussie thinks the aspects mean, but not a word of proof as to their actual meaning.
Nope, it isn’t luck or secrets either! It’s stories.
The reason why it’s basically interpreted as knowledge is because Rose basically thought that was what it meant, because she misunderstood the difference between subjective and objective knowledge (which is basically her entire character arc). Likewise, Vriska thought it was luck, but she was also wrong; unfortunately, the community seems to have latched onto these two disparate facets as the meaning of the aspect. Ultimately, things like “luck” or “good paths” are purely subjective; in a predetermined world (which, for all intents and purposes the world of Homestuck is) luck is nothing more than a lie, a story we tell ourselves that ascribes meaning to random events. Likewise, the secrets being revealed were explicitly the “important” ones, with importance being determined by... the story. Although Vriska may have thought she was stealing luck, she wasn’t; she was actually stealing plot importance, and so couldn’t die an unimportant death because it wouldn’t fit (in other words, plot armor and other contrivances). Likewise, Rose wasn’t seeing the future in terms of actions, but instead seeing the plot of the story in advance.
This also fits with their personal growth; Vriska was Thief of Light because she wanted to steal the story of her ancestor Mindfang and make it her own, and Rose was the Seer of Light because she saw stories all around her. Rose is the more obvious example; nearly every single one of her problems has to do with the fact that she views everything as having intrinsic meaning--when, it can be argued, meaning is only a story we tell ourselves in order to make sense of an ultimately uncaring and pointless universe. For instance, she feuded with her mother due to viewing narratives of conflict that weren’t there because she just couldn't accept that what was happening was meaningless. Her psychology of choice is Freudian, which posits that for each behavior and each dream, there is a story behind it, some childhood experience or repressed memory that brought it forth, and she brings this style of analysis to bear on her friends insisting that every random thing they say is due to some deeper story going on in their heads. Even when on the meteor and faced with the overwhelming evidence that some things around her were pointless, she drank herself into oblivion rather than seriously face her issues. Only when confronted with Jasprosesprite^2 did she acknowledge that some things don’t have a whole story behind them; they just are.
Likewise, Vriska’s character arc is about stories. However, while Rose saw stories around her, Vriska wanted to be part of them. She modeled herself after the fictionalized Mindfang from the diary she found, rather than trying to become her own person, and she forced stories on those around her; Tavros, rather than growing into Pupa Pan, had that dream (=story) stolen from him and instead became coopted into growing the way she thought he should. She makes elaborate plots for the world around her (see: fires re. irons, also the plan she made for her confrontation with Terezi), and when they break down (e.g. her feud with Aradia), she breaks down. Only when she dies in another timeline does she allow herself to stop being the artificial persona she created in order to imitate Mindfang and start actually exploring some of her own desires and thoughts. Even then, in the post-retcon timeline she ends up forming a compromise between Mindfang and herself; I don’t want to start The Discourse over this, but it’s at least healthier than she was earlier.
Even Aranea’s few appearances support the Light as Story theory. As a Sylph, she is driven to “fix” problems in her aspect, even if those problems would be perfectly capable of being fixed without her help. The most obvious part of this is where she steals the Ring of Life and completely ruins the pre-Retcon timeline; she’s so confident in her ability to bring the session back to its normal “plot” that she actually disrupts it further. However, when she makes smaller adjustments, she’s actually helpful, e.g. when she wakes up Dirk to allow for [S] Synchronize and the proper start of the session. In smaller instances, she also portrays herself as an authority on stories whose confidence ends up damaging their veracity; see her Sylph booths and their frequent minor mistakes (not realizing Damara was almost certainly corrupted by Lord English, thinking Karkat and Terezi still had strong feelings for each other because Kankri and Latula did, and many more that I can’t recall right now). Even her powers fit; while Vriska puts people to sleep and ends their consciousness, Aranea brings it to them. This is a bit of a weak connection, but because dreams are associated with Void in several ways, I don’t feel that it’s a complete stretch.
To everyone that’s made it this far, I’d like to apologize; I didn’t mean to write quite so many paragraphs, but this is my personal hobby horse theory and I write at such length because I haven’t really seen many other people who have heard of it. If you have any counterpoints, I would genuinely like to hear them. However, I feel like representing Light as a single thing (stories) instead of two things (knowledge/secrets and luck) makes a lot more sense, and it also ties in with the themes of the work a bit better.
I tried something new with the introduction--you’ll have to let me know if you like it.
A prince of time is one who actively destroys or destroys using the constant and unchanging, the flow of time, or detachment from reality. Personality-wise, they hate their aspect and view it as exclusively or at least primarily negative, and push it away as a result. Despite trying to imitate their opposite aspect, they can never truly succeed, and they need to learn to accept that their aspect has positive parts.
A Prince of Time is... SO COOL. They're DOWN FOR ANYTHING, it doesn't even matter what. They always want to KEEP MOVING FORWARDS, just to make sure they don't STAGNATE. They've probably moved to a new house MORE THAN A FEW TIMES, and they MAKE LOTS OF ART in a wide variety of genres and mediums. They're REALLY NOT THAT GOOD AT IT, but at least it's ORIGINAL, which is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT. Unfortunately they spend so much time working on their art that they forget to eat sometimes, and their sleep schedule is SHOT TO HELL AND BACK. That is of course assuming a schedule at all; they do things WHENEVER THEY FEEL LIKE IT like a spoiled prince, because they aren't going to be bound by TIME SHEETS, or by REGULAR SHEETS EITHER.
In short, a Prince of Time hates the constant and unchanging and tries to destroy it. This is not healthy or emotionally mature; expect to see more than a little "Rebel without a cause" popping up, because they don't really care what it is they're destroying. Unfortunately this is going to cause serious negative repercussions; their guardian probably hates them, they can't collaborate well with their session-mates because they aren't online or available to a reliable schedule, and they've passed out in the middle of things more than once due to sleep deprivation. Once they enter the session, they're also likely to make a disproportionate number of dead selves, due to not wanting to or just not bothering to close time loops. Additionally, their host player probably hates them, because architecture falls pretty solidly under the umbrella of “things that should really just be done simply and methodically” but that won’t stop the Prince of Time from getting “artistic” with it.
In order to mature, a Prince of Time needs to accept that Time is sometimes a good thing. This means realizing that sometimes they can't or shouldn’t create new things, and that it's better to just keep doing the same things as before. This will grate on their instincts, as they're constantly driven to be innovative, but unfortunately in the real world sometimes the best solution is already found and it's better to just stick with it. Once they learn to accept this, they'll be able to temper their ability to break people out of patterns with the ability to recognize which patterns need breaking, and they can be a powerful force for change.
In terms of powers... for those of you who have read Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, suffice it to say "King Crimson" and be done. For the majority of those that haven't, I have now made the mistake of having to explain King Crimson, so buckle up. In short, King Crimson allows its user to "destroy" a span of time, hence why I felt it fit the Prince of Time. In the "destroyed" time, objects continue along their path--for instance, bullets keep traveling and people keep walking--but they are unaware that time passed, instead perceiving time as having "skipped forward" by a small amount--or alternatively, like dissociation except that the universe Actually Does That. Additionally, while objects keep traveling, they won't interact with each other, instead passing through each other. The user of King Crimson is unaffected and can move freely during this time, causing the impression of teleportation or instantaneous movement. The powers of the Prince of Time would be similar, although likely requiring conscious attention in order to erase a period of time rather than being immediate, and probably having a cooldown (King Crimson is absolutely broken, FYI). Interestingly, this counts as "destroying time" for obvious reasons, but it also counts as "destroying using time"--if we parse Time as "constant or repeated action", that's exactly happens within this ability's area of effect.
Ironically, the user of King Crimson doesn't really fit the personality for a Prince of Time very well, although it can be stretched to fit somewhat. I actually can't think of many good examples of a Prince of Time off the top of my head, only a few approximations. The Doctor has shown shades of this across multiple incarnations but most notably the 11th, but never as a primarily defining personality trait. One could argue that Bart and/or Lisa Simpson show some shades of this, but again it's blurry, and spread out between the two of them. If any of you know of any good examples of characters like this, please let me know.
Thoughts on a session with a Knight of Void, Prince of Space, Heir of Time, and Sylph of Light?
There’s something weird where my asks are migrating up and down my list so the order these come out might be a little wonky.
Analyzing by classpects:Knight of Void means there's not enough potential or vacuityPrince of Space means there's too much physical change or cyclesHeir of Time means this is a story about the constant, unchanging, and repeatingSylph of Light maybe means that the story of this session is muddled or unclear somehow.
Looking at these in conjunction, this is a session which has trapped its players. It's entirely likely that the players will end up having to use all their time and energy breeding the Genesis Frog, to the exclusion of everything else. Unfortunately, while breeding the Genesis Frog is important, it's not the only thing that players have to do. Usually a session is ruined due to excessive personal goal-seeking and ignoring the Frog, but in this session there's a very real risk that the players won't meet their personal goals, and as such either won't be able to defeat the Black King or--more likely--won't have their Grist Spires ready and in position to actually incubate the frog into the new universe.
Fortunately, this isn't a lost cause. The Prince of Space can break people out of their strict routines and the Knight of Void can help people protect the freedom they already have. Meanwhile, the Sylph of Light and the Heir of Time can do overtime on the actual game duties, freeing up opportunities for the rest of the party to train and overcome their issues.
There's just one other factor here: there's no two ways about it, the Prince of Space is going to end up killing frogs. I don't know if it's going to be one important frog or lots of little ones but there are so many amphibian death flags, you don't even know right now. This sounds like a bad thing and it probably is, but it might not be; frog breeding could just as easily be subtractive, removing frogs with bad genes from the gene pool so that good ones can breed in a surprisingly ethical instance of ranaean eugenics.
A session with: Seer of Breath, Rogue of Time, Maid of Void, Heir of Space, Page of Mind, Knight of Light, Mage of Rage, Witch of Heart, Sylph of Doom, Thief of Hope, Prince of Blood, Bard of Life? Thanks! I love your analyses by the way.
Starting by breaking this down:Heir of Space means that the session is about physical and/or cyclical changeKnight of Light means there's not enough narrativeMaid of Void (maybe) means that the session will be influenced by unimportant or irrelevant thingsPage of Mind means that the session will end with something that follows clear binaries or other strict delineationPrince of Blood means that there's too much bonds or co-dependenceWitch of Heart maybe means that the players are playing in order to become individuals or for the sake of the self or romance.Bard of Life means the greatest threat to the session will be growth and/or wealth.
With all these factors together:This is a group of players who really thinks SBURB is fun. They probably started playing because they were already close friends and they wanted playing because they wanted to escape the rest of the world. They installed the game, prototyped their things...
and then discovered that thanks to the Witch prototyping either a famous person or a photo thereof, their sprite and/or a ring/scepter thief has organized a carapacian and/or consort revolution which doesn't particularly like the idea of actually breeding a Genesis Frog.Honestly, with the way this session looks, the standard troubles (frog breeding and the like) will be almost non-issues; instead, most of the session will involve dealing with this sudden uprising, which probably seems like a background non-issue until suddenly one of them takes a ring or something, or the King sets the Reckoning off against them instead of against the players when he's supposed to. Complicating this, the presence of a Prince of Blood implies that there's an unhealthy level of co-dependence in the session, to the point that some of the players might actually support the revolutionaries who ultimately plot against them.
Fortunately, the session has a lot of tools to get out of the problems it's made. The Seer of Breath would be able to see motion and action and in doing so would be able to notice where the revolution is going before it gets out of hand, and the Mage of Rage would notice the mundane issues that would make the revolution an issue instead of being caught up in its Hopeful goals. A Thief of Hope is also about the ideal classpect for seizing the reins of a poorly-thought-out revolution, although whether they'll stop it or just lead it is another question.
In terms of actual powers, a Rogue of Time will be excellent at countering guerilla warfare with guerilla warfare, as they can steal through and from time to have the tools they need, and the Sylph of Doom could help break apart the things the revolution has actual grievances against without going overboard. The real power couple here, however, is the Heir of Space and the Maid of Void. The Maid of Void can help break up toxic relationships by bringing meaninglessness to noxious ideas, and the Heir of Space can help act as a sort of group-wide auspistice, stopping issues from boiling over. They won't be able to do all this on their own, but they can do a lot. If the Knight of Light helps protect them and their good ideas instead of protecting stupid bad ones, and the Thief works with instead of against the party, they should be able to work past their problems and breed a genesis frog--and, judging from the Page of Mind, drafting a new, fair code of law in the process.
I am officially starting up going through the queue of requests! They’ll be queued so if you submitted yours later it might be a few days before they show up. Also, until the queue is emptied, I am not accepting full-session asks (single character asks are ok).
Andrew himself have me the god tier “Heir of Light”
he actually said he saw me as an heir or page, but i was like please dont make me wear the speedo and he agreed. I’d dig up our old skype chat to see why but it was something about believing in luck but not being especially lucky myself and something something how i work with others?
We pester him so often about this sorta thing that the answers are almost entirely meaningless at this point.
theartofmadeline
germansingergirl
2087
jbbartram-illu
turnnoffyourmind
ellievsbear
